Adulthood Starts At 32, Says Study Into ‘Turning Points’ In Brain Ageing

Adolescence lasts much longer than you thought!

On Tuesday, Nov. 25, neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge in England revealed they had identified four major “turning points” in a person’s neurological development, and that some pivotal ages happen a lot later in life.

“The brain rewires across the lifespan. It’s always strengthening and weakening connections and it’s not one steady pattern — there are fluctuations and phases of brain rewiring,” lead researcher Dr. Alexa Mousley, told the BBCadding that this can happen at different ages for different people.

Mousley’s study published inNature Communicationsreveals that the first phase of the brain — called the “childhood brain” — lasts until the age of 9. During this time, human brains are defined by “network consolidation,” where synapses are whittled down and rewired.

After the age of 9, the brain enters the adolescence phase, which lasts until the early 30’s. During this time, “white matter” continues to grow in volume in the brain, and “organization of the brain’s communications networks is increasingly refined,” according to the study.

This is also the time when the brain undergoes one of its biggest changes within a person’s lifespan.

“Around the age of 32, we see the most directional changes in wiring and the largest overall shift in trajectory, compared to all the other turning points,” Mousley added, per the release.

“While puberty offers a clear start, the end of adolescence is much harder to pin down scientifically,” she added. “Based purely on neural architecture, we found that adolescent-like changes in brain structure end around the early thirties.”

After the age of 32, a person’s brain enters its adulthood era, which is the “longest era” of the brain. During this phase, the brain’s architecture stabilizes, leading to a period without “major turning points” in cognitive abilities or personality traits.

This lasts until the age of 66, when the human brain enters the early ageing period. During this time, there is a “gradual reorganization of brain networks” with “reduced connectivity as white matter starts to degenerate,” according to Mousley.

“This is an age when people face increased risk for a variety of health conditions that can affect the brain, such as hypertension,” she added.

The final turning point of the brain happens at the age of 83, when a person enters the late ageing brain phase. While the research noted that “data is limited for this era,” they said that in this final period, “brain connectivity declines even further, with increased reliance on certain regions.”

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“Many neurodevelopmental, mental health and neurological conditions are linked to the way the brain is wired. Indeed, differences in brain wiring predict difficulties with attention, language, memory, and a whole host of different behaviors,” senior author Prof. Duncan Astle, Professor of Neuroinformatics at Cambridge, added in the release.

Astle also noted that this information will be able to help scientists better understand the brain’s journey during a human life, and why it works the way it does.

“Understanding that the brain’s structural journey is not a question of steady progression, but rather one of a few major turning points, will help us identify when and how its wiring is vulnerable to disruption,” he said.